Astonishing: Working Benefit Claimants To Face Financial Penalties If Their Boss Files Tax Information Late

OOB refers to the requirement that payroll data is submitted On Or Before the date employees get paid.

Chaos is on the way for the lowest paid workers as new rules come into force which link payment of vital in-work benefits to employer’s compliance with providing tax information on time.

From this month almost all employers will finally be expected to provide payroll data to HMRC every month as part of the Real Time Information (RTI) system. This change has already been introduced for larger employers but businesses with nine or less employees had been given a 12 month ‘easement period’. That ran out on April 6th this year.

For those on low incomes this payroll data will be used to calculate their entitlement to Universal Credit. If this information is not filed on time then bosses are warned by the DWP that their workers may: “receive too much or too little Universal Credit”. This means those with irregular hours and earning patterns, such as people on zero hour contracts, could be left up to several hundred pounds short at the end of the month. For workers dependent on benefits to meet rent payments this could prove devastating. Try explaining to your landlord that you can’t pay the rent because your boss didn’t file their tax return on time this month. Of course some claimants could also end up receiving too much Universal Credit and not know why – or even that they have – calculations are already breath-takingly complicated. This will lead to involuntary debt and unforeseen repayment demands in the future.

Perhaps the most chilling problem is that many bosses just don’t care about their employee’s in work benefits. Research published by HMRC late last year found a small number of ‘micro’ businesses had no intention of changing their payroll systems to meet the new requirements – as the quote above this post demonstrates. Many more employers were still confused about the changes, or were not even aware that Real Time Information was being introduced. Others said they could’t afford updated IT equipment to run the software required to manage this reporting system. Some claimed that only one person does the payroll returns and if they are off sick then it doesn’t get done.

When it was pointed to these non-compliant businesses that late reporting would affect the payment of in-work benefits to staff the employers fell into two groups according to the researchers. There were those who said they would strive to comply with the new system so as to not affect their employee’s income. And there were those that were ‘unconcerned’.

In a meagre effort to make them more concerned HMRC have introduced a penalty system for employer’s who don’t provide payroll information on time. It is, as you might expect, a bit of a joke. Employers will not be fined if it’s the first time they’ve filed late that year. Even then they will be able to appeal due to ill health or IT difficulties. And the fine is just £100 for the smallest employers and a trivial £400 for those with over 250 employees. This is likely to be considerably less than the financial penalty that workers could face for their employer’s negligence.

Despite several HMRC reports into the introduction of Real Time Information there appears to be little information being published on how many businesses are compliant with the scheme all of the time. If only a tiny percentage of employer’s file information late – because they are careering out of business anyway for example – then this could impact on the impact of tens, or even hundreds of thousands of people. Errors in the system alone are likely to lead to significant suffering and confusion. For anyone who’s ever had a real job or had to deal with inept Jobcentre busy-bodies the end result is easy to imagine. When payments aren’t correct the DWP will blame your boss and your boss will blame the DWP. The worst kind of employers may just sack workers who get too uppity about PAYE information being filed late. And then possibly lie to the Jobcentre about why they left and cause them to lose eligibility to benefits completely. It is an astonishing amount of power for an employer to hold over their workers.

In the mind of bungling toff Lord Fraud, the unelected Minister for Welfare Reform who helped design this new system, bosses are all wonderful people who would never abuse their staff and always pay their taxes on time. Recent revelations about the UK’s own Prime Minister shows what bollocks that is. But so entrenched is the capitalist class’s delusion of their own fucking wonderfulness that they are now designing administrative systems that depend on this honourable behaviour amongst the rich.

You don’t get rich by behaving honourably though. You get rich by using every tool you can find to dominate and exploit those surrounding you. And as more people are slowly transferred onto Universal Credit then they will be more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by their employers than working class people have been in generations. Behind all the lies about making work pay and incentivising hard work, that is the real reason for the Tory government’s welfare reforms.

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Universal Credit is a Universal Shambles and should be scrapped altogether. There was nothing wrong with the Social Security system until bungling idiot IDS and meddling millionaire Lord Freud stuck their fucking oar in. I asked Labour if they would scrap UC but they refuse to answer. The Social Security system is well & truly fucked and we’re on our own.

This is not a surprise. Whilst the cunt cameron waxes lyrical about his dad I have about a £2 increase per week i my pension. Housing benefit has already been reduced by 47p per week. They don’t want the poor to be anything other than poor whilst the rich get away with murder. This country is a tyrannical third world fascist quagmire

What a complete bunch of evil arseholes these tories are.. they love the fact that poor people are getting poorer I bet they all laugh about whilst in the HOC restaurant eating their subsidised steaks and humming bird eggs with Hollandaise sauce whilst drinking bottles of subsidised expensive expensive champagne… in 2 days I’ve eaten 2 crusts of toast with melted cheese on…
Bastards

The Electoral system in Britain is total shit to say the least. It should never be allowed in a so-called ‘democratic’ country to have a Government in power who are so very distant from most of the Electorate. This has been gradually getting worse and worse for many years now, culminating in the bunch of over priveleged, over wealthy, corrupt and uncaring bastards that we now have. Through some ‘electoral default’ and also to public apathy and hoping for ‘better’, (perhaps through UKIP also), these 312 or so toffs were voted in by only 24% or so of the total electorate.
It is an unfair farce in the greatest degree and it is obscene that these cunts can have such total power over so many of the population.
The more money and power they have, the more they want, giving more and more to their ‘rich/wealthy friends whilst at the same time slaughtering the poor (literally).
Dennis Skinner was today sent out of parliament for calling Cameron ‘Dodgy Dave’ – he was right and it is shameful that Bercow, the speaker, sent him out. If it had happened the other way around, I wonder if Bercow would have sent that person out of the chamber.
At PMQ’s the barracking, the laughing, the hear hears and general raucous behaviour, often when someone is speaking or asking a question is disgusting. I do not remember anyone being sent out of the chamber once for doing this (although occasional ‘warnings’ and ‘guidance’ is issued sometimes by Bercow). The vast majority of the public is totally sick of these Tory bastards – and the sooner they are all out, the better.

It is Not Enough Ian Duncan Smith has gone as Secretary of State
For Work and Pensions the Damage done like the Bedroom Tax and
the Infliction of Council Tax upon the Poor and Vulnerable Needs to
be Reversed

Indeed the Country has become a Fascist Totalitarian State Quagmire
One of Chaos

jeremy | April 11, 2016 at 7:02 pm | Reply

This is not a surprise. Whilst the cunt cameron waxes lyrical about his dad I have about a £2 increase per week i my pension. Housing benefit has already been reduced by 47p per week. They don’t want the poor to be anything other than poor whilst the rich get away with murder. This country is a tyrannical third world fascist quagmire

Once again i see no mention of the mass demonstrations in France regarding attacks on workers rights, no mention of the corporate driven disability thefts shown on last nights tv and no mention of the 400 arrests in the USA of pro democracy, one person, one vote demonstrations…………

Just the usual spoon fed shit from the state run false media of the BBC and Sky where life is beautiful all the time and Hague is quoted as supporting Cameron and his obscene wealth and the hatred of millions goes unpublished.

Surprisingly the omission on our media of the correlation of deaths in the USA and the introduction of welfare cuts. Surprise, surprise, the link between robbing folk of their right to housing and a square meal does have a link to mortality figures!,

Try telling the DWP who mission has changed from helping the poorest and those smitten with disability to one of feeding the corporate parasitic giants that pay out healthy returns to shareholders sitting on or near our government corridors of power.

A £1 packet of out of date luncheon meat with egg has been my staple diet for the last four days now but my resolve to see Cameron fall will keep me battling on.

Disability is for life, not when Atos sees fit to publish false medical reports at the behest of a government to bolster the banks.

DWP knew of Universal Credit problems in mid-2012 despite insisting all was well

Computer Weekly – 12 Apr 2016 11:30

Documents released after a four-year legal battle show that DWP officials knew of problems with Universal Credit in 2012 despite insisting it was on time and budget

Officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) knew by mid-2012 of issues with Universal Credit that could cause the welfare reform to be delayed and run over budget, and yet continued to insist for at least a year that the controversial project was not experiencing problems.

The status of the programme in 2012 has been revealed by documents released under freedom of information (FoI) laws after a four-year legal battle by independent project manager John Slater. DWP had argued in court that the risk register and issues log should be kept secret, until a tribunal in March 2016 ruled they should be released.

These proposals will mean people with ex employers like mine will be stuffed! My last employers regularly bounced our paychecks and it was only the tax credits and child benefit that kept us afloat! And when one woman told boss she had no food in the cupboard he smirked and told her eat the cupboard! What do you do??

Bryan Adams won’t perform in Mississippi because they voted through anti-LGBT laws, as much as I love Bryan Adam’s music he has to accept democracy not spit his dummy out and say he will not perform there.

Why not just say they have changed from a once a year system to a monthly system instead of this ‘real time’ nonsense. Is HMRC attempting to conjure up banks of computers with whizzing lights and spinning disks performing zillions and zillions of instantaneous calculations as the inputs change by the nanosecond? “just fax us your payroll data at the end of the month instead of at the end of the year” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as ‘real time information system” 😀

“Yesterday I witnessed some pretty horrendous bullying against a JCP client,
the lady was basically told she was a scrounger and should not still be claiming after two years and didn’t she feel embarrassed about taking other people’s money.

Everything was very carefully worded however,
the end result was that the advisor told her she needed to sign off and eventually (after keeping her there for nearly 45 minutes, with by then nearly a dozen clients waiting) she did.
I have never spoken to the woman before yesterday but I am fairly certain she would be classed as a vulnerable person.”

– this is the same shit the ‘work programme’ pull. Tell you that by dint of you having been unemployed for 2 years you have been ‘claiming benefits fraudulently and it is time for you to sign off. Your claim is now ended, there is no further need for you to attend the ‘work programme’ or the jobcentre. Bye, and put your plastic cup in the bin on the way out” Always phrased exactly the same. Wonder how many of their victims fall for it and just give up.

The advisor seems to be new, he seems likely to have a background in recruitment.

When I previously signed on several years ago I witnessed something similar and reported it,
I then had my signings made into a living hell.

Outside of the JCP, who would be the best person to complain to about this?

It’s difficult. I’ve witnessed a clearly very vulnerable woman being talked down to and given no help/pushed back outside in the ‘reception’ area of a JCP- this lady needed an advocate & apparently didn’t have one. I think people who’ve managed to film these incidences can do most to get the information out and widespread. While ‘complaining’ inside JCP- is a bit like complaining to the camp commandant?

Flyhawks what is your problem with gay people ….fuck off…you come on here makeing snide homaphobic comments at every oppertunity bryan addams refuesal to play in charlot ….thankyou mr adams……has nothing whatsoever to do with this conversation ….nothing……so whats your point ??????? Come on tell us ,what is your problem with lgbt people come on tell us mrs flyhawks what you like cock up your manpussy fine….come out ,come out where ever you are …..most sorted hetrosexual peop
Le who have no problem with there sexuality generaly have no problem with any body eleses …..you obviousely have a problem with yours …..yeah is that the case seems like it.

The trouble with you lgbt people is that you cannot stand anyone that is different from you not the other way around and are trying to gain support from anyone who will listen that you should have special priviliges and support because you are gay – WHY?
Crudeness ,not double entendre type humour is what you are all about and I am not afraid to face any of the gay community and voice my own point of view, which is what those in Mississippi have done.
Your problem is because their views don’t correspond with yours they must be hypocrites, God botheres etc, not people who make their own minds up and have a lot more respect for religion and the bible than the likes of you, who wants to marry in a church just so that you can push these people and their views to the limit.
MOST OF YOU DON’T EVEN BELIEVE IN A GOD BECAUSE HE MAY CHASTISE YOU – BUT HE DOES THE SAME TO STRAIGHT PEOPLE.
GROW UP!

Oh sod off! Damo’s right in everything he says and you’re talking a load of shite. Everyone realizes nowadays what a bunch of hypocrites these bible bashers are. They spout their pious nonsense and put down gay people, or whoever else they don’t like this week. All the while behind closed doors many of them are the worst examples of humanity going around. They pontificate about being all for the bible and against gays when many of them are doing it in secret!

There’s a reason church membership is dwindling away to nothing nowadays; the younger generations realize what a load of made up shite it is.

Damo – you know ‘we’ ought to just accept prejudicial acts/laws (if they don’t match our (olde) world view), if they’re in the rules … For goodness sake, it’s only the 21st century not some mad equality-ridden futuristic fictional utopia; let’s not get too carried away expecting equal rights & etc – how might that (‘we’) all end up?!

The LGBT are not respecting other people’s rights. The religious of today did not write the bible, but it is no less relevant today than it was then, infact it is probably more relevant today and those that follow it should not be disrespected for the fact that they are devout in their beliefs.

Raining

Do you think damo’s reply to me was clever? There are a lot of hypocrites amongst the religious and outside of religion also, but you do yourselves no favours when you talk to people in a crude way and then tell them they have sexual problems because they happen to have a different opinion from you, just who are the dictators here?

Forcing gay people to undergo treatment for being gay should never be on the agenda, if God made you that way then as far as I am concerned fair enough, providing you are not hurting anyone else, but those that are going around sleeping with men, women, and God knows what else creating havoc, producing children etc does not make for a stable society.

Personally I am not a knock on peoples door type of Christian, but I have always tried to practically help people who have knocked on my door, but I would not go out of my way to try and convert anyone or even change their prejudices towards religious people, nor do I want them trying to change my opinions against them.

Fly it’s you who doesn’t understand; discriminating against someone on the grounds of their sexuality is wrong, just plain wrong. For certain stores to want to have the freedom to turn away people if they’re gay is abhorrent. If you don’t see that then it’s very sad.

That’s what Adams was protesting over i believe.

The hypocrisy of religion has been exposed continually down the years regarding this issue. Churches have done themselves no favours with their stances.

I agree to turn away people from stores because they are gay is not right and the people that are doing it may not even belong to religion, they just may be anti-gay.

What I am trying to get across to you is everybody has their own opinions for whatever reason, but the gay media is keeping a lot of the propaganda about how much anti-gay activity there is going because it is gaining support for it’s cause, even though most people are accepting that some of the gay community are genuinely gay and want to settle down with a partner, others within their community are giving such people a bad name when their antics are off the wall.

Personally I don’t think Bryan Adams should have refused to play there, he probably could have had more of an impact if he had played there and voiced his opposition to how or why they are treating gay people in this way.

I do not want to gag gay people (they are good at doing that themselves 🙂 ), I want everything out in the open, so I was shocked that Mr Adams tarnished the music industry by refusing to play there.

ps You don’t win hearts and minds by forcing your opinions down other people’s throats or making petty gestures,any more than you can find people work by starving them off benefits. 2 wrongs don’t make a right.

JV – Yet another underhand attack on low paid people. I’ll bet the Tories hope that this measure is kept off the radar as they’re supposed to be helping ‘hardworking families.’

There is no support for poor in this rotten country. Due to New Labour and right wing Tory governments the UK is now one of the most divided and unequal societies in Europe.

We don’t live in a meritocracy but a class divided society whereby if Daddy has loads of money in a tax haven he can afford pay for his son to attend private education and then get a top job. This shit country stinks because of privilege for the few and sod all for the masses.

“CAPITA URGES WORK CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT CLAIMANTS NOT TO ATTEND……….AS THEY WRITE THEIR ASSESSMENTS PRIOR TO BEING EXAMINED”

It comes as no shock to anybody that a government contractor burdened with millions of stolen benefit cash, would cheat.
But you must ask yourself, did the DWP agree to re-examine all those robbed of their benefits by the Dispatches exposed dodgy examiner who bragged of making mega bucks from those he openly shafted?

The whole sordid affair of the so called, benefit cheat has been completely reversed…………….

CAPITA ARE THE CHEATS THAT STEAL, NOT ONLY FROM THE CLAIMANTS, BUT THE TREASURY AS WELL.

There old director, BILL GUNNYEON, jumped ship from his position of CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER OF THE DWP to work for MAXIMUS, shortly after he helped handing MAXIMUS the DWP contract and a handsomely paid position for himself.

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